“Some of the feedback kept me up at night”

Sam Canham CMgr FCMI was thrilled to be seconded to the role of senior continuous improvement manager at Currys plc earlier this year. She credits Chartered Manager status with helping her to take the step up. 

“I genuinely don’t think I would have got the job had I not become a Chartered Manager, because my people skills wouldn’t have been there,” she says.

Sam started with the company as a laptop repair engineer in 2011, progressing to line manager and then operations manager. But she had always been driven by numbers and deadlines; she admits that she wasn’t very good with the people side of management. 

• “At times, I doubted my own skills… I overcame this by achieving Chartered Manager status”

She recalls a 360-degree feedback form completed by her team: “Some of the comments kept me up at night: ‘very strict’, ‘by the book’, ‘no grey areas’, ‘very dogmatic’.” 

Becoming more approachable

Sam’s journey with CMI began after she encountered its resources through colleagues. This led her to carry out assessments of her communication style. She realised that she didn’t have much empathy. A subsequent conversation with her manager was also eye-opening. 

“She said that if she needed something done yesterday, I was the person she’d ask. But when it came to talking with someone about a sensitive topic, she’d hand the task to another colleague.” 

• Chartered stories: From hair salon to business consultant and MD

Sam did not want that to be the case; she wanted to be approachable and to help her team to grow and develop. She started looking at routes to change her management style. In particular, understanding Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was a big breakthrough.